Search Engine Marketing

April. The countdown to May 1 enrollment deposits begins in earnest now that acceptance letters for new freshmen are out and about from schools that do not do rolling admissions. We will soon learn which enrollment marketing innovations were effective this year. And which were not. Mark your calendar for the 2017 AMA Symposium for […]

This Thursday and Friday I’ll be in Boston for the third annual “Writing Right for the Web” conference sponsored by Academic Impressions. We’ve done them in San Diego and Atlanta and I’m looking forward to meeting the people who will be with us this week. The war on “Black Hat” SEO continues An “extra” session […]

Late summer greetings to everyone. From the chatter on Twitter, it seems that the arrival of new freshmen on campuses across the country has been a marvelous event. Special congratulations to everyone who helped carry freight from cars to dorm rooms. Check at the end of the newsletter for new fall presentations, including a conference […]

Check Title Tags to Improve Search Marketing Results Just a few minutes ago a visit to the Traffic Resources website reminded me that there is low hanging fruit in the online higher education marketing world that isn’t being harvested. On that page is a “daily poll” that’s been running since January: “What’s The Most Important SEO Element […]

Muhlenberg College and the “Real Deal” on Financial Aid In yesterday’s blog post on a parent’s reaction to the cost difference between Northeastern University and University of Connecticut, I mentioned the practice of “preferential packaging” that is widespread in the private sector and not unknown among public institutions. Preferential packaging isn’t new in 2009. Financial […]

The news came first on the radio driving to Marshall last night on my trip back from CASE V in Chicago… ironic perhaps that I’d just that morning done a “Writing Right for the Web” workshop that holds up direct marketing and journalism as two precursors of an effective web writing style. The Detroit Free Press […]

Using language that your key audiences use is one of the most effective things you can do to engage visitors when they arrive at your website and give you 2 to 10 seconds to capture their attention. That came through to me again yesterday while reviewing 20 pages on a client’s website for ways to […]

Denny Hatch is an old-time direct marketer who writes a regular online column for Target Marketing. I read it often to maintain a connection between still-effective direct marketing eternal truths and the modern online world. If you’ve been wondering about the contribution to marketing effectiveness that analytics can make, then read today’s column at

Did you by chance think the Washington Post was just the name of a newspaper? Major newspapers don’t survive today by selling papers, subscriptions to papers, and advertising in newspapers. The Washington Post Company has been diversifying for years and holdings now include the college test-prep business of Kaplan, Inc. And so it isn’t a surprise […]

More than dozen dedicated people continued on for another three hours last Tuesday after the close of the eduWeb 2007 conference for my workshop on “Simple Steps for Search Engine Success.” We had a fine time until 5 PM finally ended our explorations. From all that we what we discussed, here are some key points that […]

Wednesday morning today is final prep time before my Search Engine Marketing workshop this afternoon at the ACT Enrollment Planners Conference in Chicago. And so a quick note from today’s issue of Search Engine Land as I was checking the latest Search Marketing news. “SEO Tips and Tactics from a Wikipedia Insider” is a column by a person who volunteers to review and […]

If you haven’t yet discovered a new feature from Wordtracker, visit the “Free Keyword Suggestion Tool” at http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/ Enter single keywords and you’ll get back a plethora of results for your entry and a long list of similar combinations. When you can’t quite decide how to label something at your website, go here and use […]